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Lowell Tuttle
Nean spirited?
How about my man Tillerson. The best Oil and Gas CEO right of center man I can think of to be allied wiht my girl Liz...
You’re a bunch of dopes and babies’
New book goes inside Trump’s stunning tirades against generals — a pivotal moment in his presidency
By Carol D. Leonnig and Philip Rucker WASHINGTON POST
Jabin Botsford /Washington Post
Details roll out on “tailored training” for President Donald Trump that became a turning point in his presidency.
Dunford
Tillerson
Mattis
Penguin Press / Handout
Note: This article is adapted from “A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump’s Testing of America,” which will be published on Jan. 21 by Penguin Press.
There is no more sacred room for military officers than 2E924 of the Pentagon, a windowless and secure vault where the Joint Chiefs of Staff meet regularly to wrestle with classified matters. Its more common name is “the Tank.”
Hanging prominently on one of the walls is the Peacemakers, a painting that depicts an 1865 Civil War strategy session with President Abraham Lincoln and his three service chiefs — Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman, and Rear Adm. David Dixon Porter. One hundred fifty-two years after Lincoln hatched plans to preserve the Union, President Donald Trump’s advisers staged an intervention inside the Tank to try to preserve the world order.
By that point, six months into his administration, Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, Director of the National Economic Council Gary Cohn and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had grown alarmed by gaping holes in Trump’s knowledge of history, especially the key alliances forged following World War II. Trump had dismissed allies as worthless, cozied up to authoritarian regimes, and advocated withdrawing troops from strategic outposts and active theaters.
So on July 20, 2017, Mattis invited Trump to the Tank for what he, Tillerson, and Cohn had carefully organized as a tailored tutorial. What happened inside the Tank that day crystallized the commander in chief’s berating, derisive and dismissive manner, foreshadowing decisions such as the one earlier this month that brought the United States to the brink of war with Iran. The Tank meeting was a turning point in Trump’s presidency. Trump began to tune out and eventually push away the experts who believed their duty was to protect the country by restraining his more dangerous impulses.
The episode has been documented numerous times, but subsequent reporting reveals a more complete picture of the moment and the chilling effect Trump’s comments had on the nation’s military and national security leadership.
Just before 10 a.m. on a scorching summer Thursday, Trump arrived at the Pentagon. The uniformed officers greeted their commander in chief. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Joseph Dunford sat midway down the table, and Trump sat at the head of the table facing a projection screen. Down the table sat the leaders of the military branches, along with Cohn. White House chief strategist Stephen Bannon was in the outer ring of chairs with other staff.
Mattis, Cohn and Tillerson and their aides decided to use maps, graphics, and charts to tutor the president. Mattis devised a strategy to use business terms the president would appreciate to impress upon him the value of U.S. investments abroad.
An opening line flashed on the screen, setting the tone: “The post-war international rules-based order is the greatest gift of the greatest generation.” Mattis then gave a20-minute briefing on the power of the NATO alliance.
Bannon thought to himself, “Oh, baby, this is going to be f- - - ing wild. If you stood up and threatened to shoot (Trump), he couldn’t say ‘postwar rules-based international order.’ It’s just not the way he thinks.”
For the next 90 minutes, Mat-tis, Tillerson and Cohn took turns trying to emphasize their points. They showed where U.S. personnel were positioned, at military bases, CIA stations and embassies, and how U.S. deployments fended off the threats of terror cells, nuclear blasts, and destabilizing enemies in places including Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, the Korea Peninsula and Syria.
Trump appeared peeved by the schoolhouse vibe but also allergic to the dynamic of his advisers talking at him. He repeatedly interrupted. For instance, the word “base” prompted him to say how “crazy” and “stupid” it was to pay for bases in some countries.
Trump’s first complaint: South Korea should pay for a $10 billion missile defense system that the United States built for it. He argued that the administration should pull U.S. troops out of the region or bill the South Koreans for their protection.
“We should charge them rent,” Trump said. “We should make them pay for our soldiers. We should make money off of everything.”
Trump proceeded to explain that NATO, too, was worthless. U.S. generals were letting the allied member countries get away with murder, he said.
“They’re in arrears,” Trump said, reverting to the language of real estate. Then he scolded top officials for the untold millions of dollars he believed they had let slip through their fingers.
“We are owed money you haven’t been collecting!” Trump told them. “You would totally go bankrupt if you had to run your own business.”
Mattis tried to calmly explain that Trump was not quite right. NATO had anonbinding goal that members should pay at least 2 percent of their gross domestic product on their defenses. Only five of the countries met that goal, but it wasn’t as if they were shorting the United States on the bill.
More broadly, Mattis argued, the NATO alliance was not serving only to protect western Europe. It protected America, too. “This is what keeps us safe,” Mattis said.
Trump then repeated a threat he’d made countless times before. He wanted out of the Iran nuclear deal that President Barack Obama had struck in 2015, which called for Iran to reduce its uranium stockpile and cut its nuclear program.
“It’s the worst deal in history!” Trump declared.
“Well, actually …,” Tillerson interjected.
“I don’t want to hear it,” Trump said, cutting off the secretary of state. “They’re cheating. They’re building. We’re getting out of it. I keep telling you, I keep giving you time, and you keep delaying me. I want out of it.”
Before they could debate the Iran deal, Trump erupted to revive another frequent complaint: the war in Afghanistan, which was now America’s longest war. He demanded an explanation for why the United States hadn’t won, now 16 years after the nation began fighting there in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Trump unleashed his disdain, calling Afghanistan a “loser war.”
That phrase hung in the air and disgusted not only the military leaders at the table but also the men and women in uniform sitting along the back wall.
“You’re all losers,” Trump said. “You don’t know how to win anymore.”
Trump questioned why the United States couldn’t get some oil as payment for the troops stationed in the Persian Gulf. “We spent $7 trillion; they’re ripping us off,” Trump boomed. “Where is the f- - -ing oil?”
Dunford sought to explain that he hadn’t been charged with annihilating the enemy in Afghanistan but was instead following a strategy started by the Obama administration to gradually reduce the military presence in the country in hopes of training locals to maintain a stable government. Trump shot back.
“I want to win,” he said. “We don’t win any wars anymore.”
All morning, he had been coarse and cavalier, but the next several things he bellowed went beyond that description. They stunned nearly everyone in the room, and some vowed that they would never repeat them. Indeed, they have not been reported until now.
“I wouldn’t go to war with you people,” Trump told the assembled brass.
“You’re a bunch of dopes and babies.”
The senior officers in the room were shocked. Some staff began looking down at their papers, rearranging folders. A few considered walking out.
This was a president who had been labeled a “draft dodger” for avoiding service in the Vietnam War under questionable circumstances. Trump was a young man born of privilege and in seemingly perfect health: 6 feet 2 inches with a muscular build and a flawless medical record. Then, in 1968 at age 22, he obtained a diagnosis of bone spurs in his heels that exempted him from military service just as the United States was drafting men his age to fulfill massive troop deployments to Vietnam.
Tillerson in particular was stunned by Trump’s diatribe and began visibly seething. He stared , dumbfounded, at Mattis, who was speechless, his head bowed down toward the table.
But, as he would later tell close aides, Tillerson realized in that moment that Mattis was genetically a Marine, unable to talk back to his commander in chief.
Others at the table noticed Trump’s stream of venom had taken an emotional toll. So many people in that room had gone to war and risked their lives for their country, and now they were being dressed down by apresident who had not. They felt sick to their stomachs. Tillerson was furious and decided he couldn’t stand it another minute.
“No, that’s just wrong,” the secretary of state said. “Mr. President, you’re totally wrong. None of that is true.
“The men and women who put on a uniform don’t do it to become soldiers of fortune,” Tiller-son said. “That’s not why they put on auniform and go out and die. … They do it to protect our freedom.”
There was silence in the Tank. The meeting soon ended. Mattis, Tillerson and Cohn were deflated. Standing in the hall with a small cluster of people he trusted, Tillerson finally let down his guard.
“He’s a f- - -ing moron,” the secretary of state said of the president.
The Tank meeting had so thoroughly shocked the conscience of military leaders that they tried to keep it a secret. At the Aspen Security Forum two days later, NBC News correspondent Andrea Mitchell asked Dunford how Trump had interacted during the Tank meeting. The Joint Chiefs chairman misleadingly described the meeting, skipping over the fireworks.
“He asked a lot of hard questions, and the one thing he does is question some fundamental assumptions that we make as military leaders — and he will come in and question those,” Dunford told Mitchell on July 22. “It’s a pretty energetic and an interactive dialogue.”
Trump once again gathered his generals and top diplomats in December 2017 for a meeting as part of the administration’s ongoing strategy talks about troop deployments in Afghanistan in the Situation Room, a secure meeting room on the West Wing’s ground floor.
The conversation began to tilt in the same direction as it had in the Tank back in July.
“All these countries need to start paying us for the troops we are sending to their countries. We need to be making a profit,” Trump said. “We could turn a profit on this.”
Dunford tried to explain again that troops deployed in these regions provided stability there, which helped make America safer. Another officer chimed in that charging other countries for U.S. soldiers would be against the law.
“But it just wasn’t working,” one former Trump aide recalled. “Nothing worked.”
Following the Tank meeting, Tillerson had told his aides that he would never silently tolerate such demeaning talk from Trump about making money off the deployments of U.S. soldiers.
“We need to get our money back,” Trump told his advisers.
That was it. Tillerson stood up. But when he did so, he turned his back to the president and faced the officers.
“I’ve never put on a uniform, but I know this,” Tillerson said. “Every person who has put on a uniform, the people in this room, they don’t do it to make a buck. They did it for their country, to protect us. I want everyone to be clear about how much we as a country value their service.”
Tillerson’s rebuke made Trump angry. He got a little red in the face. But the president decided not to engage Tillerson.
Later that evening,Tillerson was working in his office at the State Department. The phone rang. It was Dunford. The Joint Chiefs chairman thanked Tiller-son for standing up for them in the Situation Room.
“You took the body blows for us,” Dunford said. “Punch after punch. Thank you. I will never forget it.”
Tillerson, Dunford, and Mattis would not take those blows much longer.
In March 2018, Trump abruptly fired Tillerson while the secretary of state was halfway across the globe on a sensitive diplomatic mission to Africa.
Mattis continued serving as the defense secretary, but the president’s sudden decision in December 2018 to withdraw troops from Syria and abandon America’s Kurdish allies there — one the president soon reversed, only to remake 10 months later — inspired him to resign.
Dunford stayed on until September 2019, retiring at the conclusion of his four-year term as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
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